tribunal - anyone changed their school choice half way through?

[bjkmummy]

ive named a free special school for ASD which costs 8.5 k per year. head met my son, we went to the open day, he has had all of his notes, LA visited the school in light that I am pushing for it to be named. before i named it i got a letter of them offering him a place.

once the tribunal process started sent them the form to complete that he has a place about 6 weeks ago. tehy are really dragging their heels sending it back and i dont know why. they asked for more paperwork which i duly sent, there is not some issue re the OT he may need, explained to them that the tribunal may order that it is an addition to the cost of teh school place to the LS if tehy are ordered to buy it in. he had a meeting today with someone and said he would phone me - the head is who i am talking about - anyway he didnt he sent me an email saying that they now want to see j in school and speak to his teachers. i have to send my form back by next friday with the names of my witnesses on and of course i want to name the head to give evidence about why his school can meet his needs.

i am panicking about these delays and how vague he is being. if he does a u turn and says they cannot meet his needs etc im up teh creek without the paddle, tribunal is in feb and i have no other school that i could name unless i went independent which is goingt o be 40k and the travel will be huge - there is no way i would win the economical use of resources so i am seriously worried. there are no special schools in county - there nearest maintained one is out of county and is full plus j is high functioning so a generic special school would not be good for him - i am so so stressed. how do the tribunal respond to parents asking part 4 to be changed but the reality is if this school says no i have no idea where i could go and the independents no doubt would want to assess him which with just weeks to go to christmas time is running out

It's not unusual for parents to change their case about schools, but obviously if you have to do it then the more notice you give, the better. The tribunal will probably allow the LA a chance to put in a further response, and they might adjourn the hearing if they think that more time is needed to consider this.

I wouldn't necessarily discount the possibility of an independent school. If they tribunal finds that the LA school can't meet your son's needs and the independent school is the only one left on the table, then they will name that school even if it is more expensive.

I also wouldn't get too hung up on the witness list. It's very common for people to change their witnesses before the final hearing and the tribunal doesn't seem to object. You could just put in something to the effect that you're still finalising the witnesses and will let everyone know as soon as possible.

the LA have not at this stage put a single school on the table - they cant because we have no special schools - they ahve in their response put they reserve the right to do so later once they have amended parts 2 and 3 based on the OT report. sadly they are oblivious that we have private SALT and ed psych reports so its not just going to be on OT. the LA say they are urgently consulting my school but the head told me yesterday that noone from the LA has contacted him since they visited a month ago so they are hardly moving at an urgent speed!